Dear Healers who don't DPS

[Ghishlain]

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There are so many arguments for expected healer DPS here that have never recieved any kind of rebuttal (likely because there isn't one to make) and yet in 35 pages I haven't seen a single person on the side of the "pure" healers be able to make a point that holds water.

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I just don't understand. There are all these compelling reasons to DPS and no counter arguments but "my sub" and yet you people still beat this dead horse. Why? Why do you want to do something so boring? I just don't get it.

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As you mentioned, there are a lot of compelling reasons to DPS which I do not disagree with.

My beef with some of the healer-DPS crowd is that you must DPS and you are expected to DPS.

Everyone plays at varying levels of skills and comfort and yes, some of these non-DPS players are lazy because they know they can get away with being lazy like that. But I absolutely dislike generalized branding like that, which applies both ways IE all non-DPS healers are lazy and terrible and all DPS-healers are elitist scum.

I guess I'll rebuttal your argument with a question - why must a healer DPS?

I'll reiterate for both of us - there are compelling reasons to DPS including mobs dying faster thus needing less healing (though more MP is generally spent overall), faster and more efficient runs (and generally safer runs, depending on the content), and being able to clear content under their intended item level.

But again, why must a healer DPS? This is my beef is when extreme players make the outlandish claim that any healer who doesn't DPS with the appropriate windows of opportunity to do so are consider terrible and beneath the scum of the earth. That's my beef. Call me a care bear but if you want healers to actually want to play a healer, you don't cultivate a community with antagonistic comments indicating how poor they're doing because they don't fully understand the nuances of healing just yet. Not everyone does this, yes, but when it does hit, it becomes a sticking point in the discussion.

Again, why must a healer DPS? There are compelling reasons on why they should DPS but when the dev's come out and say, repeatedly, that there is no intention to include healer DPS in raid clear calculations at appropriate ilvls, why does the community need to force healers to DPS then?

It just reminds me of people saying "I need to have a luxury car!" and not "I would like to have a luxury car". The connotations are different and people respond differently to said connotations.

Oh, and before the tank-enmity argument comes out again - do note that the producer has gone on record that they do tune for a predicted level of DPS from both the tanks and DPS. A tank who's just spamming Flash / Overpower / Unleash is most likely not hitting that predicted level of DPS.

[Taika]

Again, why must a healer DPS? There are compelling reasons on why they should DPS

You're really answering to your own question here. They should DPS because, if, and when they can. If you can be helpful to your party, you should, and it's fair for others to expect that from you. If you can be helpful to your party, there's no sensible reason or justification for choosing not to.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

But again, why must a healer DPS? This is my beef is when extreme players make the outlandish claim that any healer who doesn't DPS with the appropriate windows of opportunity to do so are consider terrible and beneath the scum of the earth. That's my beef.

Why should I use Shadow Wall or Sheltron? Because it makes your job easier and the run more efficient. That same logic applies to healers. If you expect DPS to maneuver around aoes and tanks to mitigate when neither will kill them, why shouldn't they expect you to contribute equally? If we're going to argue playstyle, I frequently drop tank stance whenever I get pure healers regardless of my pull sizes, so long as I'll survive. The abrupt spike of incoming damage may stress some players yet your argument posits they aren't allowed to complain. I'm still doing by job, I've simply made yours more of a hassle. If you were to complain, it's inherently hypocritical because now you're asking I do something different to make things smoother for you but aren't willing to reciprocate through DPS.

Basically, this whole thread can be summed up with, everyone should contribute evenly when the opportunity arises, be it through damage, utility or healing. Use your full toolkit and make the run smooth for everyone.

[Ghishlain]

You're really answering to your own question here. They should DPS because, if, and when they can. If you can be helpful to your party, you should, and it's fair for others to expect that from you. If you can be helpful to your party, there's no sensible reason or justification for choosing not to.

I'm okay with this because I feel it's important for people to learn to use their kits at the optimal level. Not everyone will be able to but at least understanding what boundaries to push is important to player growth.

However, again my beef continues with people who claim that it's absolutely critical for a healer to be DPSing else they are only causing the group to fail.

Again, I continue to ask - why must a healer DPS? Don't tell me why they should - tell me why they must. Most of you will fall flat trying to find a solid argument that cannot be rebutted in this regard because there is no argument for a healer to DPS.

Again, it's a luxury versus a need.

And just for your knowledge, my train of thought is meant to encourage other players to see both sides of the coin and understand that not everyone will be able to play at the levels we would like them to play at. This goes for both sides of the coin, healer-DPS expecting DPS and no-DPS expecting healers to sit still and heal all day. All this does it cause strife within the community that I'm hoping to just raise awareness and change the tone towards topic.

Arguing with me in terms of "Must" and "Expectations" only reinforces an insular community that is rigid and unaccepting of players because, while they can perform their core function, they're not doing it to "my expectations" which again leads back to the "muh sub" tirades.

Why should I use Shadow Wall or Sheltron? Because it makes your job easier and the run more efficient. That same logic applies to healers. If you expect DPS to maneuver around aoes and tanks to mitigate when neither will kill them, why shouldn't they expect you to contribute equally? If we're going to argue playstyle, I frequently drop tank stance whenever I get pure healers regardless of my pull sizes, so long as I'll survive. The abrupt spike of incoming damage may stress some players yet your argument posits they aren't allowed to complain. I'm still doing by job, I've simply made yours more of a hassle. If you were to complain, it's inherently hypocritical because now you're asking I do something different to make things smoother for you but aren't willing to reciprocate through DPS.

Basically, this whole thread can be summed up with, everyone should contribute evenly when the opportunity arises, be it through damage, utility or healing. Use your full toolkit and make the run smooth for everyone.

Just to reiterate my response to Taika above, the goal in my posts is to try to get more players to consider all facets of a player and their skill and knowledge. Not saying you do this specifically, but claiming a healer is terrible because they don't DPS without understand the circumstances (they may be new, they be getting used to new content, they may have had a sudden emergency phone call they had to attend to, etc.) just reinforces a negative community that, to be honest I'd like to curb stomp out.

I'm being an idealistic crusader right now and I will openly admit that. It won't stop me from trying (at least for now, lol)

I will say if you're looking at absolute equality in terms of activity, output, and responsibility, you're never going to find that. Tanks and Healer's have an inherently higher responsibility threshold due to the nature of their roles compared to DPS. If you look at DPS just spamming 1-2-3 combos, some DPS will have a higher output than others. Players accept these inequalities. Yet for some reason we cannot seem to accept a healer that doesn't DPS and healers have been kicked and bad mouthed for doing no DPS. Doesn't that seem wrong? This is just my food for thought question.

You must try to help the team clear the content, to the best of your ability. If you are too busy (or to OOM) keeping people alive to do DPS, then so be it. If you're standing around doing nothing? You can help kill it faster.

That is the same expectation on every single player in the game when doing group content.

A healer's primary responsibility is still the health of their party because you can't clear if everyone is dead. Anything they offer is icing onto the healer cake at that point. I'm not going to to tell you to not DPS if the opportunity presents itself, but I'm also not going to tell you to DPS when the windows are their either.

The goal is to clear the content, it just so happens every role's goal post is at a different yard marker. Anything that role kicks beyond that yard marker is a nice bonus.

Everyone has differing opinions on acceptable even though all those definitions of acceptable is correct. I'm just trying to show while there is one best solution to the encounter problem, there are definitely multiple solutions below that will still allow the groups to clear their content. This is the point I'm trying to drive home right now - don't ostracize a player because they don't play at your level whether higher or lower than your own. Learn to accept that not everyone can meet your own expectations but we can still clear this content together regardless of that and I feel that's the point the developers are attempting to drive home too with their continual insistence that healer DPS isn't calculated or required.

I'm definitely in agreement with you on the role name thing tho. Huge swathes of these threads revolve around little more than semantics and it's pretty hard to break that circle for more than a page or two at the best of times.

I got a feeling if they did this we'd have equal number of discussions on the semantics of "support" vs "healers" but I think I'd prefer that over the healer DPS debate we currently have, lol. At least that discussion wouldn't revolve around the extremely broad range of skill in the healer community.

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I will admit it's been pretty enlightening playing the devil's advocate on this particular topic. If anything it's improved my critical thinking skills and elevated my patience some. I know I'm on a losing side of the debate looking at the post likes but I won't really stop either as I like to advocate acceptance and understanding of all levels of play skill and comfort.

[Taika]

However, again my beef continues with people who claim that it's absolutely critical for a healer to be DPSing else they are only causing the group to fail.

Who is saying a healers who don't DPS are causing their groups to fail (outside of Savage context where it may be true)?

I won't really stop either as I like to advocate acceptance and understanding of all levels of play skill and comfort.

I too am advocating acceptance and understanding of all levels of play skill and comfort, for all jobs. The only thing I have an issue with is when people (again, on any job) are flat out refusing to be helpful for their group - when they would be able to do so (when they are comfortable with the content, skilled and experienced, no one is in any danger and so on). What is asked from healers here, and what is asked from everyone else, is to try to be helpful to put in some effort for the party. This has been repeated in these discussions again, and again, and again:

As for the rest of these posts, the point is that people want to see EFFORT. Nobody's expecting big dicl numbers, especially out of DF of all things. However, you're generally supposed to ASK for a sherpa instead of being lazy and trying to get a free carry.

There's also a thing called context. If you're brand new to an instance, nobody's gonna be mad at you for trying to feel it out. Even if you end up the worst at your role, most will forgive if it looks like you tried. I think that's all anyone's asking

That's the only thing reasonable people are asking, if during an entire fight you need to heal then no problem you don't have the time to do damage but if you only need to heal during 50% of the fight you should do something (not nothing) during the other 50%.

We are not expecting you to contribute the most damage output, nor ask you to abandon your primary role. When there is a wide time-frame in which no healing is needed, instead of reading about Toenail Fungus, or watching the latest episode of Log Horizon, or etc., why not throw in a few skills. . . at least some dots to help things along?

General rule of thumb: you don't have to be a pro MLG high DPS healer for people to be happy with your performance, so long as you have some awareness of when your party is taking damage and when you have downtime. You should learn your toolkit and find the skills which give you downtime (regen, aspects benefic, rouse), and at least weave in some sort of DPS just so you aren't idling, because it's the idling that people notice, not your damage numbers

When we are talking about dps on healer, we're not expecting everyone to do 1000 dps.
If every healer just use dots, the very least, it would be enough to stop yelling at those who "don't want to dps because blabla".

What people are asking for:

- Heal when healing is necessary. If your party is taking too much damage it is okay to not DPS.
- If you find yourself standing around, throw some dots on, cast a few damage skills.
- Use your time wisely. If you aren't comfortable with the dungeon no one is going to get on you, but if you can contribute please do.

You may feel like you're being enlightened and having a good time playing the devil's advocate, but to me it looks like you're just blindly swinging a sword against a strawman you have built yourself.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Just to reiterate my response to Taika above, the goal in my posts is to try to get more players to consider all facets of a player and their skill and knowledge. Not saying you do this specifically, but claiming a healer is terrible because they don't DPS without understand the circumstances (they may be new, they be getting used to new content, they may have had a sudden emergency phone call they had to attend to, etc.) just reinforces a negative community that, to be honest I'd like to curb stomp out.

I'm being an idealistic crusader right now and I will openly admit that. It won't stop me from trying (at least for now, lol)

I will say if you're looking at absolute equality in terms of activity, output, and responsibility, you're never going to find that. Tanks and Healer's have an inherently higher responsibility threshold due to the nature of their roles compared to DPS. If you look at DPS just spamming 1-2-3 combos, some DPS will have a higher output than others. Players accept these inequalities. Yet for some reason we cannot seem to accept a healer that doesn't DPS and healers have been kicked and bad mouthed for doing no DPS. Doesn't that seem wrong? This is just my food for thought question.

You are conflating two different arguments. No one here is mandating healers DPS indifferent to what happens around them. Someone saying, "Sorry! Someone came to the door" is far different than someone standing around doing nothing. If you aren't communicating, I have no way of knowing your extenuating circumstances nor do I care. You haven't given me a reason to. All I see is your lack of contribution. Likewise, I have more patience with low level players or those new to content than I would someone with multiple 70s and/or 320+ gear. If you're stepping into Ala Mhigo, you should have a good understanding healers DPS in FFXIV. That is hardly a lot to ask of someone at max level. Once I again, I direct you to my post, which you didn't address in your response to Taika.

why must a healer DPS?
why must a tanks use cooldowns/maintain tank stance?
why must DPS avoid unnecessary damage when it won't kill them?

You cannot defend one without simultaneously acknowledging the others. If there is no argument for healer DPS; there isn't one for proper tank mitigation. I can take Halicarnassus' Critical Hit with just Awareness, but doing so puts a massive strain on the healers. I make your job easier yet you won't reciprocate with DPS when possible, which may allow us to push passed mechanics. In the case of casual content, healer DPS contribution allows for a faster run.

Equality relative to the respective roles. I certainly wouldn't care if a healer has less casts overall than a Samurai, but it is annoying if they spend all those casts on pointless Cure Is when I have 90% HP and am in no danger of dying. These healers are bad because they are refusing to improve and accept FFXIV is not WoW. You have considerably more downtime and easier time healing. No one is asking for you to top the FFlog charts, we're asking you throw out a Holy, Gravity or some dots. If you cannot be bothered to do that at level 70, you aren't a good healer in FFXIV. At best, you're decent at half the job. Will I kick them from casual content? Rarely. I'll just pull more and/or drop stance to make up some of the damage. When it comes to savage, I won't join statics where healers aren't DPSing. This is assuming, of course, everyone knows the fight already. Conservative play during prog is perfectly understandable.

[Destatiredux]

why must a healer DPS?
why must a tanks use cooldowns/maintain tank stance?
why must DPS avoid unnecessary damage when it won't kill them?

I feel like much of the fuel behind this discussion has to do with these questions and how they're dealt with by the community. See, a good tank will use cooldowns. However if they don't, you don't see them being ridiculed on the forums to the extent you see for healers, nor do you see them being kicked from casual or DF parties. The party adjusts. If a dps gets hit by avoidable things, the same situation applies. You're rarely gonna see a dps being kicked or harassed in a party for standing in the bad- at worst the healer will simply leave the dps on the floor and continue to do what they will. However the backlash for a healer not dpsing is so much worse lately than either of those situations, where healers will be literally told, in both forums and parties, "If you don't dps you're a trash healer. You're going to get kicked if you don't dps. If you want to just heal, go unsub and find another game." This is why the Devs don't want people expecting dps from healers- not because they want healers to be lazy or to keep people from encouraging the best possible play from healers willing to listen, but to stop people who will take their views on it and use them to enforce what is basically a meritocracy on their own parties. These attitudes are why many who are viewed as "non dps" advocates are, I feel, actually aiming for a middle ground, like myself and Ghishlain.

[Taika]

I feel like much of the fuel behind this discussion has to do with these questions and how they're dealt with by the community. See, a good tank will use cooldowns. However if they don't, you don't see them being ridiculed on the forums to the extent you see for healers, nor do you see them being kicked from casual or DF parties. The party adjusts. If a dps gets hit by avoidable things, the same situation applies. You're rarely gonna see a dps being kicked or harassed in a party for standing in the bad- at worst the healer will simply leave the dps on the floor and continue to do what they will. However the backlash for a healer not dpsing is so much worse lately than either of those situations, where healers will be literally told, in both forums and parties, "If you don't dps you're a trash healer. You're going to get kicked if you don't dps. If you want to just heal, go unsub and find another game."

Is this really your experience? I would imagine that a tank refusing to use cooldowns (or tank stance) or a DD who eats every single AoE is just as likely to get kicked in DF than a healer who refuses to DPS (and neither happens very often). However, no one would defend such a tank or DD, whereas there are people (even in this very thread) who try to justify that kind of healer play.

[Destatiredux]

Is this really your experience? I would imagine that a tank refusing to use cooldowns (or tank stance) or a DD who eats every single AoE is just as likely to get kicked in DF than a healer who refuses to DPS (and neither happens very often). However, no one would defend such a tank or DD, whereas there are people (even in this very thread) who try to justify that kind of healer play.

Actually, yes. I've never, not once, seen a tank get kicked for not using cool downs or tank stance in a DF, nor a dps get kicked for standing in all the things. Not once in all the years I've played this game. But I have experienced and seen healers get kicked for not dpsing, or dpsing enough. I agree none of it is defendable, but since people tolerate the rest to a much larger extent than a healer lacking dps, I find it to be an incredible double standard by the community if that's the comparable measure being used in this instance.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

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This victim complex simply doesn't exist. First and foremost, healers aren't kicked from parties any more than other roles. It's widely over-exaggerated, especially with queue times being abysmal for DPS. Most will tolerant a lot on the simple basis they don't want to wait even longer. This extends to blatant call outs in-game. If it becomes egregious, people will either leave or may ask what's going on, but you just aren't seeing abrupt outbursts in party chat regardless of the role you play. That all being said, you don't circle many discord channels or even these very forums often do you? Mockery is not exclusive to healers. In fact, the "Tales of Duty Finder" thread has more people bitching about DPS or Tanks than any other role. For myself, I will absolutely yell at a tank if they aren't using CDs, and kick them if it persists. I'm not there to be your personal babysitter because you can't be bothered to play your job properly.

So why are threads about healers more prevalent? Because only that role has a built in excuse to perform poorly, one people actively defend. There isn't a debate to have with tanks or DPS. You're unanimously considered a bad player if you don't rotate cooldowns or stand in everything under the sun. No one will defend either shortcomings, especially at the endgame level. If you look at the general forums right now, a Red Mage is complaining how rude it was he was kicked after two deaths. Note the replies. Barely anyone has given him much benefit of the doubt-- at best saying the first death wasn't a huge deal. Healers, on the other hand, have people cherry picking that tired Yoshida article, insisting their only job is healing or acting entitled about their DPS contribution being a luxury we should be thankful for but never expect. That is why you see such a divide amongst the playerbase.

You find me one person who argues tank cooldowns are a luxury for healers. If you do, I'll show you an idiot. How's that for calling out?